imagine
by St. Aelphaba
Summary: "she's a handsome woman - not conventionally beautiful by any standards, but maybe the kind of beautiful that you start to see the second or third time you look at her. she's tan; tall; rugged. short, messy hair, a big nose, and even bigger ears. big hands, too - her long, spindly fingers fit perfectly in with rose's." AU.
1. rose, part 1

(A/N: I started drabbling this last night because I'm obsessed with the idea of a female Nine, and then it started writing itself. Updates will probably be sporadic, and of all different lengths, though I'm sort of challenging myself to write a little bit more every night. Nothing is capitalized because that's how I originally wrote it, and I didn't feel like reformatting the entire thing, so I'm going to keep it consistent and call it creative license.)

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imagine rose being cornered by living plastic mannequins in the basement of henrik's and thinking she's about to be killed and she's only 19 and she thought so much more could have come out of her life, but here she is in concrete hell, going so mad that she's hallucinating manic mannequins - she must be. and then imagine, as she's cornered by these plastic people and she's going to be beaten down at any second, a woman grabs her hand and calmly says, "run."

she's a handsome woman - not conventionally beautiful by any standards, but maybe the kind of beautiful that you start to see the second or third time you look at her. she's tan; tall; rugged. short, messy hair, a big nose, and even bigger ears. big hands, too - her long, spindly fingers fit perfectly in with rose's, and rose doesn't even know her name. but rose doesn't really dwell on any of this yet, because she's running.

and then she's inside of an elevator gasping for breath, insisting that the mannequins must be students, and the woman is mocking her a little bit in a way that makes rose _want_ to be mocked, and then she tells rose to go home.

"i'm the doctor, by the way. what's your name?" she says, the words spilling from her mouth quickly, frantically, but casually.

"rose," rose replies, not quite so sure of herself yet.

"nice to meet you, rose," the woman (the doctor) says, friendly as can be. "run for your life!"


	2. rose, part 2

imagine rose stepping (well, running, really) into the tardis for the first time. she's just discovered that her boyfriend is made of plastic and wants to kill her, which would feel like some kind of betrayal if it didn't already feel so surreal.

the doctor has described the earth turning beneath her feet and grabbed her hand, and rose swore she could almost feel it, and then the doctor told her, "forget me, rose tyler." as if rose could forget someone so enigmatic so easily.

but it seems that rose isn't the only one clinging onto memory, because it's the doctor who is the one to find her again, and it's the doctor who's saved her life again. (that's doctor: two; rose: zero. rose needs to step up her game. she doesn't know yet that she already has saved the doctor, though maybe not so literally.)

and now she's in the tardis, which is bigger on the inside, and that doesn't make any sense. it's alien. the doctor is alien.

mickey might be dead.

and the doctor is just letting him _melt!_

imagine the doctor's low and raspy voice shouting, "no, no, no, no, no!" when this is pointed out to her, and imagine her muscular arms (hidden beneath all that leather) pulling levers and pressing buttons, and imagine rose tyler hearing the sound of the tardis whirring into motion for the first time. she's got no clue what's going on, but when she steps outside, she's somewhere else.

and she's still so mad, because this woman - this alien woman - is so cavalier about the fact that mickey is dead. she's just going on and on about saving the life of "every stupid ape blundering on top of this planet, all right?"

and then the atmosphere between them changes, because rose is mad and upset but she also can't help herself, and so she asks the doctor, "if you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the north?"

the doctor looks almost _offended_. "lots of planets have a north!" she insists.

rose can't help it. she laughs. imagine that - her boyfriend might be dead, and she has just teleported from one side of london to another, and she's with a strange woman who must be almost her mum's age, and her job has blown up, and when you add it all up there's really nothing particularly good going on in her life at the moment. but she's suddenly filled with so much wonder, so much excitement.

and the doctor explains to her about the perception filter on the tardis that disguises it as a police box, and the living plastic invasion, and what they're going to do to fix it, and she seems so excited about everything. just a minute ago she was yelling at rose, and rose was yelling back, and now both of them are plotting together. and when rose points out the transmitter - the london eye, of all things - the doctor gives her the brightest smile yet.

and imagine rose hearing the doctor's rich northern drawl, low and tense and thrilled when she says, "oh -_fantastic._"


	3. rose, part 3

being a damsel in distress doesn't suit the doctor.

luckily, being a hero does suit rose. she's not no a-levels, no job, no future - but she's got the bronze, and that's what saves the doctor. good thing, too; rose felt an odd sort of protective, watching the doctor struggle helplessly against the iron grip of the plastic dolls. rose gets the feeling that the doctor isn't used to being helpless. (she doesn't know yet that the doctor doesn't ever feel anything but helpless.)

rose calls her mum, makes sure that she's safe. she holds on to mickey - or mickey holds on to her - and thinks about her life.

she could stay here. she could fill her life with work and food and sleep.

or she could go anywhere.

"is it always this dangerous?" she asks, unsure of what she wants the answer to be.

"yeah," says the doctor, and rose feels her heart pound. the doctor has been honest with her this whole time - harsh, maybe, but completely honest - and she doesn't stop now. she doesn't paint a portrait of perfection, and how could she, when she herself is all imperfect ears and dirty leather? she knows how to entice rose with the idea that life could be something other than orderly.

but rose stares down at her scuffed shoes, and then back up, and says, "yeah, i can't." because all her life she's been trained to be rational, to be orderly, to follow the unspoken code of the human race - work, food, sleep, death. "i've got to go and find my mum, and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so,"

it lingers in the air, and she wonders if the doctor will pick it up, give her another reason to come along. neglect honesty and entice her with splendor instead. she needs and excuse to pull mickey off of her leg and live a less hopeless life.

but, "okay," the doctor says. sadly, rose thinks. but accepting, where every part of rose is screaming, no, please, let me come with you!

a part of her might die a little bit when she hears the sound of the tardis dematerializing. and it's clear that she's missed her chance, so she mutters, "come on, let's go. come on. come on." and she pulls mickey away, and she's almost back to normal when the tardis rematerializes.

the doctor pops her head out. "by the way, did i mention it also travels in time?"

and rose doesn't care if this is any kind of dishonesty. she trusts this woman - maybe more than she should - and so she thanks mickey for nothing and lets the doctor entice her to leave her world of telly and beans on toast in favor of something a little less orderly, a little less chronological.

it occurs to rose that she's never just _walked_ into the tardis - she's always entered it at a run. only two days have passed of knowing the doctor, but maybe she's already taken her words to heart. the first thing she said to rose at all, when she grabbed her hand for the first time. _run_.

imagine rose, a gleeful grin on her face, sprinting to the doctor and into the tardis, away from her world of monotony where she has no future, toward a world of adventure where the literal future is hers. next stop: everywhere.


	4. the end of the world, part 1

the doctor thinks she's so impressive. that much is clear already. the twenty-second century is 'a bit boring,' an she skips right past what she calls the new roman empire as the tardis whirs through the time vortex at the speed of - well, at no speed, really, because how can speed be possible when nothing exists outside of them but time? the tardis whirs through the time vortex at all speeds.

the doctor takes rose to the end of the earth.

and she's proud, the doctor, like this is something every human should have the honor to witness. the destruction of rose's own planet. the explosion of her sun.

clearly, she and the doctor don't know that much about each other.

but rose still hangs onto the wonder of being in a different time and a different place, and she still hangs onto the doctor, letting her pull rose around like a willing puppy on a leash. "the doctor, plus one," the doctor says, flashing what looks like a bit of blank paper at an incredibly blue man. (he is _blue!)_ "i'm the doctor; this is rose tyler," the doctor says, smiling at the alien. "she's my plus one."

rose smiles at the blue man, thinks _plus one_ almost sounds like a date. isn't that what they say at weddings and posh charity dinners? (she supposes the end of the world is apropos for a fancy _plus one_ kind of invitation, but she sort of wishes she'd known to dress up for the occasion.)


End file.
